


Eligible

by kuolettava (salainen)



Category: Vikings (TV)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Humor
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-03-22
Updated: 2014-03-22
Packaged: 2018-01-16 15:43:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,807
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1352884
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/salainen/pseuds/kuolettava
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After returning to Kattegat a free man, Athelstan finds himself the object of most of the town's affections.</p><p>For the <a href="http://vikingskink.livejournal.com/444.html?thread=104124#t104124">kink meme</a>!</p>
            </blockquote>





	Eligible

Of all the things that could have happened after they returned from Wessex and drove Jarl Borg's men from Kattegat, Athelstan could honestly say this was not what he expected. He was expecting things to slowly return to the way they were before they set out on this raid, to mourn those lost to Borg's attack, and to find the time to recover from the wounds that still bothered him. Athelstan had always lived something of a quiet life in Kattegat; first because he was a slave, and then because he was a foreigner and a Christian, and then because he was simply the kind of person who kept to himself. 

But upon their return and after their victory, he found himself strangely popular. 

“I see Ragnar has made you a free man,” Siggy says to him at the feast celebrating the return of the rightful earl.

“What?” he says, confused and more than a little drunk.

“Your arm-ring,” she says, reaching over to run her fingers over it. He stares down at his wrist. “Soon you'll be building your own house and taking a wife.”

He nearly chokes on his mead. “A wife?”

“Oh yes. I'd put good silver on you being married off by the end of the season.” At that, she withdraws her hand and goes back to her own dinner, a smile on her face. 

Athelstan is aghast. He's never considered marriage – he was a monk and then he was property, and lately there's been so much horror and violence that more pleasant ideas didn't have the chance to take root in his mind. And now that he has the chance to think it over, he's not sure it _is_ a pleasant idea. The earl's longhouse is comfortable and he knows his place there, advising Ragnar and helping Princess Aslaug with their always-growing brood of children. He doesn't know the first thing about being the head of a household, only how to serve.

* * *

He's limping through the marketplace, buying and bartering for food for that night's dinner at the longhouse, when the first proposal comes in.

“Athelstan!” cries Frothi, one of the local farmers, clapping him on the back so hard Athelstan nearly falls right on his face.

“Good afternoon,” he says, once recovered. None of his wounds have reopened, so he considers himself in good enough shape to have this conversation.

“I have a proposition for you,” he says, now putting his arm around Athelstan's shoulders. “My daughter Ingridr is eighteen now.”

Athelstan just looks at him, bewildered. He doesn't like where this is going.

“She's looking for a husband,” Frothi continues. Athelstan continues to goggle at him. “I mean you, priest!”

“Me?” he finally gets out.

“Yes, you. Though maybe not if you are so frightened by a simple conversation about a girl.”

“I'm very flattered,” he says, trying to be tactful, “but I don't even have my own land. I couldn't support a wife.”

“That doesn't matter,” Frothi says, waving a hand. “Earl Ragnar will give you some if you tell him you want to marry Ingridr, surely?”

Athelstan is honestly not sure _what_ Ragnar's reaction would be, though he can see that as one of the possible outcomes. “I'll have to talk to the earl,” he says, disengaging himself from Frothi's arm and hobbling away as fast as he can go.

He doesn't talk to Ragnar about Ingridr.

* * *

The next time Princess Aslaug sends him out on an errand he winds up surrounded by young ladies.

“Hello, priest,” one of them says, taking his left arm.

“He's not a priest anymore, Eydis,” says a different one, taking his right arm. It's making it very hard to walk, especially since there are several more girls walking in front and behind them.

“I know that, Runa! It's still what everyone calls him.”

“I'd rather you didn't,” says Athelstan. He's been uncomfortable with the title for a long time, and his crucifixion and subsequent service to King Ecbert has only reinforced it.

“I told you,” Runa says, smug.

“Can I ask what you ladies are doing? I'm trying to deliver a message for the princess.”

“We just wanted to talk,” says Eydis, pressing closer to his side. “There aren't so many young men around anymore, you know.”

 _Oh no._ “Please, ladies, I need to pass on Princess Aslaug's message. If you could --”

“'Ladies', he says,” says a third girl, laughing. “So _polite_.”

“I think it's cute,” says a fourth. Several of the girls agree. Athelstan can feel himself turning red as they chatter about him.

“Please, I need --” he tries again, but the girls have closed in on him and he can't walk without barrelling into about four women, and Eydis and Runa are still holding fast to his arms.

“Can we come with you?” asks one of the girls.

“Ingridr, he already said no to you once.”

“I didn't actually --”

“He didn't know me then,” challenges Ingridr.

“He probably wishes he didn't now,” calls Eydis.

“That's not --” 

“Hey!”

It's Ragnar. If he hadn't already wished it several minutes ago, Athelstan would be hoping for the earth to swallow him alive by now.

“Athelstan, didn't my wife tell you to deliver that letter?”

“I'm trying, but --” He tries to indicate the women surrounding him, but he still can't move his arms. Ragnar seems to get the idea anyway.

“Girls,” he says, “let go of my priest.”

Athelstan huffs a sigh of relief as they retreat and bends to pick up the walking stick he still carries for balance. “I'm sorry about that, Ragnar,” he says. “I was only delivering the princess' message like she asked when --”

“I'm sure you were.” He puts a hand on Athelstan's shoulder. “You can flirt with all the pretty girls you want when your work is done.”

“I wasn't doing any flirting!”

“Good. Now take that note to Siggy.”

He leaves Athelstan standing in the middle of the path, note clutched in one hand, cane in the other.

* * *

Athelstan has been assiduous in his avoidance of the town since his last few visits have all involved a marriage proposal or somewhat less savoury proposition from someone or other. He rarely leaves the longhouse, preferring to focus on his duties in and around it rather than venture out and find himself accosted by amorous townspeople again. Recent events have created something of a shortage of men, and with that fact in play even he is a viable prospect for a husband, and while he remains unsure of his own feelings about it it's best for him to stay at home.

Ragnar, Aslaug, and the children are currently away from Kattegat, visiting the earl of the next hold to the east, and they've left Athelstan in charge of the household while they're away. _As in the old days,_ he muses, remembering the first time Ragnar and Lagertha left him in charge of their farm while they went raiding. 

“Haven't seen you in town lately,” says a familiar voice from the doorway.

“Hello, Rollo,” Athelstan says, giving him a nod before returning to his work, sweeping the floor of the great hall. “Ragnar's not here.”

“I know that, Englishman.” Apparently they've taken his protests about the name 'priest' to heart; now the people of Kattegat call him 'Englishman' instead. “I was bored and came to see if you wanted to spar.”

“I don't think I can. I'm still recovering from what happened in Wessex,” he says, holding up his stiff hands as evidence. He's having trouble holding the broom he's using; he doesn't even know if he'll be able to hold an axe again, a prospect he is not happy about.

“That's not the kind of sparring I meant,” Rollo says, taking Athelstan's hands in his. 

“I can't go anywhere without this happening, can I?” he says, before he realizes he's berating one of the fiercest warriors in the surrounding area without any witnesses.

“What do you mean?” he asks, still holding Athelstan's hands.

“Every time I go into the village, someone asks to marry me, or to – go to bed with them!”

“And you don't want to?” Rollo asks, clearly disbelieving that anyone would see this as a _bad_ thing.

“No! I just want to carry on like I've always done and do my work. I have no interest in being married.”

“I'm not asking to marry you.”

He rolls his eyes. “Of course you aren't. I'm not going to sleep with you, though.”

Rollo looks at him, and for a moment Athelstan fears he's finally not going to have any say in the matter, but then he drops his hands and walks away. “I'm free if you change your mind, Englishman.”

* * *

“Rollo tells me you didn't want to spar,” Ragnar says, throwing his leg over the bench where Athelstan is sitting in front of the fire.

“Welcome home,” he says, and then, “he didn't want to _spar_.”

Ragnar laughs at that. “You can hardly spar in your condition,” he says. “You walk like an old crone and you wield that broom worse than Ubbe. But you can still --”

“Don't finish that, please.”

“You're still that priest I picked up all those years ago in some ways,” he says, still laughing. “Why are you so against the idea of marrying one of the girls or sleeping with the people who ask?”

“Why do people keep _asking_?”

Ragnar shrugs. “You're young. You're a good man. You're very pretty.”

“ _Pretty_?”

“You are. Don't look like that, it's a compliment. Now you tell me why you don't want to get married.”

“I can't support a wife.”

“I'd give you land to farm.”

“I'm a cripple.”

“You're getting stronger every day, I've been paying attention.”

“I'm a foreigner.”

“You're a free man with an arm-ring, Athelstan. You're as good as any other. Now, what is the real reason?”

He sighs. “I don't want to leave.”

“What?”

“I don't want to leave you. I like living here and I like serving you and caring for your family. I don't care about marriage, or sex, or anything like that.”

Ragnar looks at him, his inhumanly blue eyes staring into Athelstan's, as if judging his sincerity. “I have to admit,” he starts, “I was worried one of those women would win you over.”

“What?”

“This is your home and your family. I just didn't know if you knew it.”

“I did,” he says, slowly, “but I wasn't sure _you_ thought so.”

“Maybe we should have talked about it,” he says, grinning again.

“What about Princess Aslaug?”

Ragnar waves a hand. “She doesn't know what she'd do without you around, now that she doesn't have Siggy. She's your family, too, Athelstan.”

“If you're sure...”

“Do you want me to swear on my arm-rings?”

“No. I believe you.”

He claps a hand onto Athelstan's shoulder. “Good. Welcome home.”


End file.
